Byrd Prillerman and Family

BYRD PRILLERMAN

If the student of American history would know what freedom has
meant to the Negro race, let him study the life of a man like Byrd
Prillerman, B.S., A.M., Litt.D., President Emeritus West Virginia
Collegiate Institute and Superintendent of work among the Negroes
of West Virginia S. S. Association. Having been born a slave on
October 19, 1859 his life covers the whole period of the freedom of
his race in America. His rise from poverty and obscurity to a place
of leadership and large usefulness as a citizen, not only makes a
fascinating story, but it is in a way, typical of the progress of
the race since Emancipation. Mr. Prillerman is a native of the Old
Dominion, having been born in Franklin County, Va., the youngest of
a family of seventeen children. His father, Franklin Prillerman,
was a man of intelligence, energy, and initiative. He was a
blacksmith and even before the Civil War had been sent into the
Kanawha Valley to work at his trade. This revealed two other
traits, loyalty and imagination. The test of his loyalty came in
the case with which he might have escaped to Ohio, but steadily
resisted the temptation and returned to his family and his master.
He became imbued with the idea that he would some day become free,
and made at his own forge a knife with which to skin deer when he
should return a free man to the Kanawha Valley, where game was
still abundant. All these qualities of the father the son
inherited, though they were to be employed in a different
atmosphere and along different lines. The mother of our subject was
Charlotte Prillerman. She was the daughter of Jacob Prillerman, her
owner, or master. Both the paternal and maternal grandfathers were
white.

Immediately after the surrender of Gen. Lee, in the spring of
1865, the Prillermans rented a farm in Virginia on which they lived
for two years. In the spring of 1868, they came into West Virginia
afoot, some of the older sons having preceded them. They rented a
place near Sissonville, where they resided for several years. Byrd
Prillerman was a boy of nine when they moved to West Virginia. He
was twelve years of age before he went to school. In 1872 he
entered school in Charleston under Henry Clay Payne, a Hampton
graduate. He availed himself of every opportunity to learn and on
November 10, 1879 began teaching at Sissonville, where at an
earlier age he had gone to school. For full forty years, he was in
the school room and in that time has come to be recognized as one
of the leading educators of his State. For his college course he
went to Knoxville College, where he won his B.S. degree in May,
1889. While a student, his summer vacations were spent in teaching.
He was the second Negro college graduate from the Kanawha Valley.
After his graduation, he returned to West Virginia and taught in
the Charleston public school till 1892. At that time Storer College
at Harpers Ferry was the only school for the higher education of
Negroes in the State, and it is not a State institution. The great
need of the race was an institution for the training of teachers,
and leaders. Mr. Prillerman saw this need and with characteristic
directness made his plans. During the Christmas holidays of 1890,
he called on Governor Fleming, and State Superintendent, B. S.
Morgan, and laid the matter before them. The Governor and State
Superintendent Morgan directed him how to proceed. He then
associated himself with Rev. C. H. Payne, D.D., and together they
secured proper legislative action creating the West Virginia
Colored Institute. This was in 1891, and the following year the
institution opened its doors to students and Prof. Prillerman was
put at the head of the department of English. He taught in that
capacity from 1892 to 1909, under the administration of three
Principals. On the death of President J. McHenry Jones, September
22, 1909, Prof. Prillerman was elected acting president September
23, and later confirmed as president. The man and the opportunity
were fairly met. He was in the prime of maturity and the
institution was still in the formative period. Under his presidency
the curriculum was thoroughly revised, and, in 1915, the school
raised to college rank, and the name changed to West Virginia
Collegiate Institute by an act of the legislature. It was the first
State school for Negroes to reach the rank of an accredited college
whose work is accepted by the universities of the North. The first
college class was graduated in 1919. Under his administration the
enrollment crossed the four hundred mark. The plant and grounds
were enlarged and improved. A dining hall, a dormitory for girls,
cement walks about the grounds, a central heating plant, the
Library and the Lakin Athletic Field were all added while he was at
the head of the institution. During the war the Institute was
recognized as a College for the training of soldiers by the U. S.
Government.

The religious motive has always been prominent in Prof.
Prillerman's work. He is a member of the Baptist church and, though
not a minister, is a religious leader. He has been Vice-President
of the West Virginia State Convention and was for five years
Moderator of the Mt. Olivet Baptist Sunday School Convention, which
under his leadership put on a progressive program, which brought
new life and enthusiasm to the work and developed efficient S. S.
leaders. So it is not strange that he found a way to create a
religious atmosphere at the West Virginia Collegiate Institute.
This was done through the Sunday School, the Y. M. C. A. and the
course in S. S. teacher training.

In 1919, he was offered the position of Superintendent of work
among the Negroes under the auspices of the West Virginia Sunday
School Association. He retired from the presidency of the West
Virginia Collegiate Institute as President Emeritus and has since
devoted himself to the Sunday School work. He is a member of the
State Executive Committee, and was a member of the International
Executive Committee for the quadrennium 1918-22. His present work
takes him to every part of the State, and it is safe to say there
is no other man in the State better informed on Sunday School work.
He does a great deal of institute work for which he is admirably
fitted by both training and experience. Other positions of honor
and trust have come to him during the years. He has been a Notary
Public since 1897, is a trustee of the National Training School for
Women and Girls at Washington, member of the West Virginia Anti-
Tuberculosis Association, and a life member of the National
Association of Teachers in Colored Schools. He was one of the
organizers and for many years president of West Virginia Teachers'
Association. He became a member of the National Education
Association in Toronto, Canada in 1891, and has retained his active
membership ever since. In recognition of his work and attainments
Westminister College of Pennsylvania conferred on him the A.M.
degree and the Selma University the degree of Doctor of
Literature.

On July 24, 1893, Prof. Prillerman was married to Miss Mattie
Eugenia Brown, of West Virginia. She was educated at Wayland
Seminary, Washington, D. C., and was an accomplished woman entering
heartily and sympathetically into the work of her husband. She
passed to her reward July 9, 1921.

Of the six children born to them four are living. They are
Delbert M. Prillerman, B.S. of Michigan Agricultural College and
Professor of Chemistry, W. Va. Collegiate Institute; Henry Lawrence
Prillerman, a student at Collegiate Institute and a teacher; Miss
Ednora Mae Prillerman, Senior at Ohio State University; and Miss
Myrtle Elizabeth Prillerman, student at Collegiate Institute
(1922).

Mr. Prillerman believes that the most patriotic thing a man can
do is willingly to pay taxes, he owns valuable lands at Sissonville
and Institute. He lives in his own home and says that "A well
painted two-story house owned by a Negro is sharper than a
two-edged sword." He believes that the White American should be
willing for the Negro to have the opportunity for highest and best
physical, mental, social, and spiritual development.

Dr. Prillerman has done his work in such a way as to make
friends for himself and for his work among the leaders of both
races. In 1912 that other race leader, Dr. Booker T. Washington,
who was also a personal friend, when on a visit to the Institute
said: "I am glad not only to come here to receive your hearty words
of welcome; but, I am, in a peculiar sense, glad to come again to
this institution. I want to repeat to the Superintendent of
Education, that I am gratified beyond measure to note the evidence
of growth and order and system that have taken place at this
institution as I see them here. I am glad that the Board of Regents
in their wisdom, saw fit to place at the head of the institution
the man they have placed there. I have known your Principal for a
number of years. I have always admired and loved him. I admire and
love him first, because of his modest bearing. He is one of the few
men who have learned that the sign of true worth, the sign of true
greatness, is in modesty and simplicity; and I want to congratulate
you that you have such a principal for this institution."